


Captive

by SecretEve95



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Gen, Secret Crush, breakingrulesaswewhizzby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23557336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretEve95/pseuds/SecretEve95
Summary: Contrary to the popular opinion of Mildred's classmates, Miss Hardbroom did not sleep hanging upside down from the rafters like a bat.
Relationships: Hardbroom & Mildred Hubble, Hardbroom/Pentangle (Worst Witch)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 72





	Captive

Mildred spoke the incantation in a soft voice. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration. Her hands purposefully zipped this way and that through the air. Immediately the young witch felt a severely irksome tug of her body. Had she really just completed her first successful transference spell? The young witch's happy heart swelled and skittered off ahead of her. She opened her eyes. Her heart jolted mid-beat and swooped down to settle in her belly. She had not transferred safely to Enid’s room for their midnight feast as planned. Mildred had arrived in a nightmare. 

Contrary to the popular opinion of her classmates, Miss Hardbroom did not sleep hanging upside down from the rafters like a bat. With wide eyes Mildred looked down upon the deputy headmistress who was fast asleep in her bed. Miss Hardbroom was resting on her back and her head and shoulders were propped up with pillows. Her taloned hands loosely grasped a book that lay abandoned on her stomach. A lit lantern on the bedside table cast ominous shadows over the unfamiliar room. Mildred's feet felt rooted to the spot at Miss Hardbroom's bedside. Her eyes darted about the room in fear.

She shook her head to clear it. 

Her eyes quickly settled upon a black cat that was cuddled up to its owner’s leg. It lifted its head from its resting place on top of Miss Hardbroom’s lower thigh. The black cat turned a piercing stare upon Mildred. For a long moment she watched the cat watching her. It seemed to examine her intently. It did not sir any further. Mildred released a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. How had her spell gone so woefully wrong?

The answer sparked to life inside Mildred's mind. She knew that whilst she had been focused on appearing in Enid’s room, she had to admit that at the very last moment the threat of Miss Hardbroom discovering their illicit midnight feast had popped into her head. And, there laid the answer: she had thought of Miss Hardbroom. Her magic had transferred her to Miss Hardbroom. 

Mildred knew that she should go. She would go – right away. Any moment now she would plan the perfect escape and leave. She knew that she would not be capable of casting a silent transference spell as evidenced by the blunder she had just made when using a verbal incantation. With no other option, she would have to drop to the floor and covertly crawl her way to the door and out of this horrible mess. The young witch shuddered to think of how many sets of lines, hours of detention and laborious task after laborious task Miss Hardbroom would inflict upon her if she were to be discovered. 

She looked the potion mistress over once more. Miss Hardbroom without her full regalia was a strange sight to behold. Mildred had now calmed herself somewhat from the initial shock of appearing in the most unexpected and dangerous place imaginable, and without her consent her brain began to absorb a new layer of information about her surroundings. A wave of curiosity swept over her and begged her to stay – stay just a moment longer. 

She first noticed that Miss Hardbroom’s hair had been released from it’s tight confines. Mildred looked closely and discovered that her long, thick mane was laced here and there with strands of silver. It cascaded over the pillow and around her shoulders. The dark tendrils starkly contrasted the white pillows and sheets. This added a new ambience to her already sleep-softened facial features. The young witch thought that in sleep she looked almost kind. How could this gentleness she had observed rest beneath such a sharp and severe exterior? Was there a gentler side to this hard woman? Had she shared it with others? Who? Mildred's curious mind wondered what that might have looked like.

Her gaze travelled down to the book resting on the potion mistress's stomach. She noted that there was also handful stacked on the bedside table. They all looked a lot less frayed and encyclopaedic than the heavy tomes Mildred was accustomed to seeing in her taloned hands. They might even be novels, the young witch thought. She examined the spines with curiosity and did not recognise any of the titles. Mildred wondered what Miss Hardbroom liked to read. 

The young witch's gaze returned once again to rest upon Miss Hardbroom's face. Mildred observed that the makeup she usually adorned herself with had vanished in the night. Without her striking eyeliner and lipstick she appeared to have lost a certain quality that Mildred couldn’t seem to put her finger on. The potion mistress looked naked – natural – human, almost. The frown lines and the wrinkles on her brow were dormant. Her eyes were still beneath her eyelids. 

For a long moment Mildred listened mindfully to Miss Hardbroom's slow and steady breaths as they came and went. 

Her gaze fell upon Miss Hardbroom's hands. The young witch was stuck by a longing to reach out through the cloak of darkness and stroke the hand of the potion mistress. Mildred wondered whether it would be warm and soft to the touch, or cool and bony. Mildred felt a flush of heat rise in her cheeks. She gulped it back down, and in response felt a surge of warmth spark to life somewhere low in her belly. She tensed and curled her sweaty hands by her sides. Suddenly, Mildred felt warm all over. She noticed that her knees felt a little shaky and it puzzled her. The young witch steadied her thoughts by taking a deep breath in. To her surprise it served only to breathe life into a pleasant heightened kind of feeling that now rested in her chest. 

Thoughts that were not entirely unprecedented began to wander into the foreground of Mildred’s mind. Shame stirred and squirmed in her torso and it was hard to stand still. But stand still, she did. She gazed down at Miss Hardbroom and wondered what it might feel like to cuddle up beside her in bed. How she would rest her head over her teacher’s breast and listen to the steady rise and fall of her breath and the thrum of her heartbeat. How warm she might feel tucked in the firm embrace of strong and unfamiliar arms. 

She might even want to kiss Miss Hardbroom on the lips; to know what her kisses – or anyone’s kisses, for that matter – felt like. The young witch revelled in silence at the thought of her desire for touches and affection being hypothetically acknowledged, accepted and reciprocated. Her chest swelled with this longing to be held in the esteem of an adult witch that she harboured admiration for. 

Mildred, along with all the girls at Cackle's, had noted long ago that Miss Hardbroom shrouded herself in privacy very successfully. So much so that rumours ignited and whispers flared behind her with each bootstep she took. However, no item of gossip, from the mundane to the sublime, had ever publicly scorched the potion mistress's coattails. The young witch wished to know her – know anything about her, really. Mildred's eyes hungrily investigated every inch of space that the glow from the lantern would allow. She looked at the cluttered beside table: books, empty teacup, potion vial filled with a dark liquid, and Miss Hardbroom's timepiece that she wore around her neck each day. 

Mildred's gaze travelled down. Suddenly, she noticed the corner of a small box poking out from it's hiding place beneath the bed. She knelt down and carefully peeled up the overhanging blanket to reveal it. The box was wooden, elegantly engraved, and not much bigger than a shoe box. Mildred's fingertips caressed the groves and ridges in the patterns on the box. The lid had been haphazardly placed on top and it was not quite closed. An envelope was sticking out and she retrieved it. Upon closer inspection the envelope was revealed to be yellowed with age and frayed around the edges. It had already been opened. With care the young witch tipped the envelope on its side. The well-worn paper of the envelope released the letter inside with ease and it slipped into Mildred’s waiting hand. With great care she unfurled the letter and began to read.

Dearest Hecate 

The summer break seems to be passing by oh so slowly without you here to speed it up. Time always flies when we’re together and comes to a halt when we’re apart. Don’t you think so? 

It’s a very warm day and I’m sitting under the shade of a tree in our secret place (tell me you remember exactly where!). As I write this note to you I’m leaning it against a novel that I took out with me this morning. My mother gave it to me last year and I accidentally on purpose haven’t read it. She said earlier, “I loved this book when I was your age!” and thrust it into my hands again. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we parted on the last day of term. How we had a midnight feast in your room and tried to stay awake all night so that the day we would have to say goodbye wouldn’t come. How Miss Bat caught me asleep beside you when she did her rounds in the morning and threatened to send us to Miss Cackle if she were to catch us next term (she won’t catch us). How I hugged you for the longest time when we said goodbye, and you let me. How you didn’t pull away like you might have, but instead wrapped me in your arms. We don’t have to talk any more about it if you don’t want to, Hiccup. I felt the need to tell you, that’s all. 

How’s your take home potions assignment going? I bet you’ve already finished it. I’m going to start mine… tomorrow, maybe – and yes, I’m now expecting a witty and overly dramatic reprimand in your reply. 

Love always,  
Pippa

Mildred lifted her gaze to re-examine Miss Hardbroom. Her mind buzzed and whirred with what she had read. The neat, slanted handwriting danced before her eyes as she refolded the letter and placed it back inside the envelope. With care she slipped it all the way into the box and silently closed the lid properly. 

She rose from her position on the floor and mischief mixed with longing sparkled in her eyes. There was one more thing that Mildred could touch – and very much wanted to touch. It was something unique and personal and very special because it belonged to Miss Hardbroom: her timepiece. Perhaps touching it, running her fingers over the glass face and the patterns in the hard metal, would provide her with some semblance of the closeness she dearly desired. Mildred envisioned pressing the cool metal against her cheek, and over her breast to meet her heartbeat. She could hold the timepiece to her ear, close her eyes and imagine that it ticked in harmony with Miss Hardbroom’s heartbeat. 

The young witch reached out with a tentative hand for the timepiece. Her hand closed around the cold metal. Cautious of accidentally rattling the silver chain, Mildred began to lift it very slowly and very carefully. 

Suddenly, Miss Hardbroom’s cat meowed loudly and sprung to its feet. 

Mildred had lifted the timepiece scarcely an inch from its resting place. She dropped it in alarm and her fingers brushed it off course as she rapidly withdrew her hand. The timepiece clattered against the edge of the bedside table, fell through the air, and landed with a resounding clank against the hard-stone floor. Her blood ran cold and she froze. 

Like a vampire emerging from a coffin after a long days’ rest, Miss Hardbroom jolted awake with a start and sat bolt upright. Her wide eyes instantly bore down upon the young witch hovering at her bedside. 

“M-Mildred Hubble!”


End file.
